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Your daughter is brilliant! That is exactly the feeling I have, considering my father died when I was 3. I found my lack of father experience to be much easier than a good friend of mine (divorced parents), whose father was alive, but never really wanted her to visit. She still has major relationship issues. I've never had ANY, and have been happily married for 10 years.

I think this is very true.

My mom and I both grew up without fathers. With her, he left when she was very small and she never saw him again. He would send a card or letter occasionally but that was it. She was 2, I think, when her parents divorced. She's really never had an issue with it and when he died (when I was a teen) she was really just unemotional. Then again she did have a very strong male role model in a great-uncle, grandfather type so perhaps that helped..?

My father was very active and involved when my parents were married, but they divorced when I was 7 and after that he was very "on again, off again" with me. The inconsistency was hard. Knowing he was "out there" and had previously been very involved was hard. I missed what I'd had and thought I was just unloveable. I did have "problems" from this. Not obvious to the outside world really... but as a teenage girl I was looking for love in all the wrong places and had issues, and just this general ache.

I said often, while growing up, that I just wished he'd left when I was very small and never came back, or had died... rather than always remaining "distant" emotionally and being sketchy and sporadic with visits. (An aside; This is the hardest part for me as my own kids' father is the same way as mine was)..

I've never met my father before. My mother was very poor growing up, and I was determined not to follow in her cycle.

I've seen that where kids didn't have much of a parent at all and still turned out okay. Generally I think it's about stability, a single mom can provide a good example, work hard, and provide a solid homelife for the kids but too many single mothers are bringing a stream of boyfriends into the home, going out partying night after night, uprooting the kids for her own love life. Mom's boyfriends are often abusive in some way to the kids. Some kids have no real parent and that can harm them.

I've seen that where kids didn't have much of a parent at all and still turned out okay. Generally I think it's about stability, a single mom can provide a good example, work hard, and provide a solid homelife for the kids but too many single mothers are bringing a stream of boyfriends into the home, going out partying night after night, uprooting the kids for her own love life. Mom's boyfriends are often abusive in some way to the kids. Some kids have no real parent and that can harm them.

Do you teach at Ohio State?

I think you hit the nail on the head, and some researchers agree with you:

Single Parents May Do as Well as Two: Study - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/singleparentsmaydoaswellastwostudy - broken link)

My wife grew up without a father. He was sent to prison. She and her father were on an out of town "trip" and he went into a store to float a bad check (there were warrants out for him in five states) and he was arrested while my wife, age ten, was sitting in the car. Her mother had to come 100 miles on the bus to retrieve her at the police station. He served four years in the state penitentiary.

Which is why I so often post my outrage at our 2-million prison population, many of whom are leaving fatherless but perfectly innocent children at home, and it messes up their lives big time.

I think you hit the nail on the head, and some researchers agree with you:

Single Parents May Do as Well as Two: Study - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/singleparentsmaydoaswellastwostudy - broken link)

No - but from personal observation, you see people who did not have a stable 2-parent home but a stable 1-parent home turn out great. It makes a big difference if mom dedicates herself to her children, is home with them every night, provides them dinner, helps them with homework, takes them on family trips and keeps life normal for them.

A 2-parent home where one parent is drunk, or the parents are throwing plates at each other, or one parent is setting a terrible example can be much worse. Children coming home from a long day of school to a home where the tensions are very high, where there is screaming and yelling and cursing will likely do worse than children from a home where mom's there (or just dad) and it's peace and quiet and solid.

What you often see that creates the problem is single mom isn't home, the children have to scrounge around for food, mom doesn't come home from the bars until they've closed and kids haven't had a parent at all. Or worse, she's bringing the men into the home and boyfriend #1 completely ignores the kids, the next - boyfriend #2 dislikes the kids intensely, boyfriend # 3 decides they need some discipline, boyfriend #4 is a total bum and so on. Or mom decides to move from place to place looking for true love and has no concern over uprooting the kids.

No - but from personal observation, you see people who did not have a stable 2-parent home but a stable 1-parent home turn out great. It makes a big difference if mom dedicates herself to her children, is home with them every night, provides them dinner, helps them with homework, takes them on family trips and keeps life normal for them.

A 2-parent home where one parent is drunk, or the parents are throwing plates at each other, or one parent is setting a terrible example can be much worse. Children coming home from a long day of school to a home where the tensions are very high, where there is screaming and yelling and cursing will likely do worse than children from a home where mom's there (or just dad) and it's peace and quiet and solid.

What you often see that creates the problem is single mom isn't home, the children have to scrounge around for food, mom doesn't come home from the bars until they've closed and kids haven't had a parent at all. Or worse, she's bringing the men into the home and boyfriend #1 completely ignores the kids, the next - boyfriend #2 dislikes the kids intensely, boyfriend # 3 decides they need some discipline, boyfriend #4 is a total bum and so on. Or mom decides to move from place to place looking for true love and has no concern over uprooting the kids.

I married my husband when I was 19. I'm 36, and we were divorced last year. Our kids are teenagers. We went through a lot of struggling together to try and make it through school while raising our kids together. In the end, he just had some issues that were affecting the rest of the family. I thought it was the best thing to do rather than dragging everyone through a lot of turmoil. He's still very bitter at me for leaving him, but as parents, it's our job to make sure our kids are raised in a happy and healthy environment.

There was a period directly after the divorce where I took on a second job to make ends meet (it was a while before the support orders actually went through). Looking back at it, the decision to take on a second job at that particular time was a bad decision on my part. Between me not being there some nights, and the impact from the divorce, my kids started acting out. I made the hard decision to move to another state 7 months ago to make ends meet. It's slowly coming together. It's not smooth, nor easy, but it's working. Therapy has been a God-send for all of us.

thanks for all of the advice and that article is great. i can remember when i got divorced-kids were 3 and 5- and someone(from a divorce) said concentrate on the kids and not being married again- well that's what i ddi- he rarely ever kept them so i never had to time to even look for a new man-Now that they are older it would be nice to have a companion. My oldest has a serious BF -she is 17 tomorrow- and has good grades and seems fine. My son is 14- has been involved in sports all of his life and has had so many of his friend's fathers be incredible role models- they are 2 very lucky kids. They haven't really asked about their dad- he reallyw asn't much of one anyway so i am thinking it's a blessing. Why my good friend thinks they will have problems really is strange. they never had problems when he was alive!!!

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